couch potato

A little goofy playtime on the couch. Yeah, at first we waffled on whether our poor, beat up, lumpy stuffed potato of a couch could handle Hurricane Po, but we're suckers for a cute mug!

"Hmm, I wonder if they serve snacks in these seats?"




"Oh, hi, you must be part of the belly rubbing team, yes?"



"A little to the left..."



"Aw, geez, watch the hair!"



"Ok, so a quick snooze, then I'm up and at 'em again!"

family tree

Ok, so I'm not positive on this one, but you have to admit, the resemblance is uncanny....

(It would explain a lot, though!)

RAWr!

Or, How I Spent a Saturday Afternoon Making My First Batch of Raw Dog Food...

Lucky Po, our little hoover vac and resident Roomba, eats like quite the wolf king.
Yes, we're a couple of those guys, committed (or should be, possibly) to not only feeding raw, but attempting to make and mix it ourselves. We've got a great place to buy the premixed, frozen stuff - that would be the awesome Menagerie on Parliament - and already have a little stash of the Pets4Life Chicken, Beef and Green Tripe (looks tasty, I tells ya) tubs hanging out in our freezer. We, however are happily ambitious and always up for a challenge, so when the chance came up to make our own, jump we did!
(I should say, as a qualifying aside, that we both also happen to cook for a living. So sourcing out organ meats and bones and processing loads of fruits and veggies isn't too far of a stretch from the daily, harhar, grind...still, making our first batch of doggy food was definitely an interesting process!)
We used Carol's formula, which she feeds her guys, and broke it down for ourselves like this:

50% turkey or chicken necks/thighs
10% organ meatsliver (chicken, veal)kidneygiblets
25% muscle meat (turkey, rabbit, lamb, beef, venison…)
10% ground vegetables (squash, cooked sweet potato, pumpkin)fruit (blueberry, apple, bananas)greens (kale, spinach, parsley)...and a clove of garlic too.
5% mix of eggdairy (goat milk)nutritional yeastmolassesyogurtapple cider vinegar
Sounds good, doesn't it? (Would it be weird to say that I'm actually inspired to shop a bit better for my own food now? In fact, as I type this, I'm finishing off a bowl of yogurt topped with blueberries and bananas...it's working already!)
At first we thought it might be a hassle to shop for and grind up all the different meats/bones, but as it turns out, we had a fabulous resource in a neighbourhood butcher shop. The fine folks at St. Andrew Poultry (they deal mostly in chickens, but have a variety of other meat too) in Kensington Market were kind enough to offer their services, and giant industrial grinder, for our project. It turns out that quite a few folks in our area feed raw too! (The nice man that helped me out told me about the lady who requested her own rabbit/liver mix to add to her cat's salmon diet. Gotta love that.)
So, from the butcher:

Ground chicken legs, necks, backs, giblets and livers. The rest is ground turkey and rabbit meat.


It feels so nice to see and know exactly what goes into our little man's food. And at a price of $38.55 for just over 20 lbs of mix, it's definitely an economical way to do it.

With that taken care of, now it's time to assemble the rest of the goodies:

Apples, carrots, blueberries, parsley, egg, yogurt and a touch of flax oil...and then we added a bit of banana, zucchini, celery and a garlic clove.

We also added a sprinkling of kelp powder to round things out. It's a great source of trace minerals and amino acids. Then bit by bit, we mulched the whole lot through the grinder. And ended up with this....

A dog's breakfast, yes!

With the sleeves rolled up and a super giant bowl handy, we then got right in there and mixed the whole shebang together. Schloop, schloop, schloop. Mmmm, meaty goodness. The end result...kinda like sausage mix.

Doggy mix, ready for portioning and freezing.

Thanks to our recent Ikea trip, we had these handy dandy containers that fit about 1 1/2 cups of food. For now, we're feeding three times a day, and going through just shy of one container each day.

When we ran out of containers, we started bagging the rest, using the tubs as a guide.

Ready for the freezer.

All in all, we ended up with 32 containers of food. With the cost of meat, fruits, veggies and extras, it works out that Po's wholesome little meals cost under $2 a day. Not bad!

I'm pretty sure Po likes it too. (We're taking his massive-inhalation-of-it-ALL-in-under-two-seconds moves as a complement to the chefs.)

road trip

A big, big day today. Homecoming! I would be lying if I told you that this last week hadn't consisted of daily (hourly, even; another reason I'm so lucky D likes me) cheerful exclamations of "Po!", "Two more sleeps!", "Puppypuppypuppy!", then "One more sleep!", in rotation, like some deranged looping children's show.

On the plus side, in between my silly episodes, we actually managed to do some useful puppy prepping, aka Acting Like Grown-Ups, around the house in the last few days. We finally did the Official Ikea Trip for bookshelves and storage units after realizing that yes, we really did have a crazy number of shoes (him) and half-read books and magazines (me) for two people. That scary black hole/bird's nest of computer, cable, ipod and stereo wires threatening to take over our living room? Tidied! Strangely satisfying, that. Oh, and hooks...that we actually put up! That hold things we use and need everyday, like towels, and keys! Whoah!

Even our fridge, now so fresh and so clean, clean. And all the better, since we then spent a bit of time assembling and storing Po's food. More on that in a bit...

...because that all of that led up to today's big event. This afternoon, we headed on up to Carol's to meet up with the munchkin (and his remaining extended family - some of the crew had already left for their new homes).

We were met by a whole posse of friendly Frenchies. So adorably distracting; um, which one was ours again? (I kid, I kid.)

like a flash mob, they slowly began to gather...





puppies everywhere!





shoes make good snacks





is this thing on?

Then on to the official stuff. Paperwork, medical info, feeding schedule, a tub of Po's current food, plus a disc packed with pictures of Po and his family (that includes, Bunny the mom, plus siblings, Jacques, Hugo, Vela and PB, now Peanut Butter, I think?), all put together by the ever awesome Carol. Thanks Carol!

Then goodbyes, and time for Po to go on his first ever road trip!

(This was taken about five minutes before we experienced the stereophonic sounds of "Frenchie puppy yodel". I had no idea that dogs could holler like that!)

Ah, but the little guy was a champ. After about twenty minutes, he started to chill out and made it look like he might actually enjoy his first major car ride. Almost.

Arriving home, Po calmly surveyed his new digs before chowing down on dinner and a making a visit outside. Then onto a well-deserved nap. He's quite the cool customer so far! (I'll admit I'm a little suspicious, but secretly relieved. For now.)

At playtime. That mug!





then, out cold





flat dog





freckles and spots





I couldn't resist....the end. For today.

Welcome to your new home, Po!